The resistance has wasted — minutes
↓Boredom is ugly. It stalks us in every waking moment, threatening us with colourless drudgery should our senses become momentarily unoccupied.
When it appears, we writhe and flail under its weight, searching for any stimulus to relieve the discomfort. It is ever-present. It is universal. It cannot be destroyed in any way that matters.
It’s often said that if you’re not paying, you are the product. And so, the drive to relieve our boredom becomes the mechanism by which we are exploited. Every dark and slippery human emotion becomes a site of extraction. Rage, disgust, greed, vanity, horniness… they offer an addict’s relief from the spectre of boredom.
Meanwhile, every tap, click, like, swipe, dwell and scroll lays the foundation for the systematic harvesting of our attention. “Come, stay a while,” they tell us. “We have your best interests at heart.”
If our attention can be quantified, it can be exploited.
But if they cannot see us, they cannot survive.